


to speak in the present tense

by 1001cranes



Category: Bandom, Dollhouse, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/pseuds/1001cranes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dollhouse fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to speak in the present tense

Jon finishes his treatment and goes down to lunch. Ryan and Spencer are already sitting together at one of the tables, trays lined up just so.

“Can I sit here?” Jon asks, and feels something pinch in his stomach when Spencer nods. He sets his tray down carefully, so it won’t bump into Spencer’s. Spencer smiles at him, two little upturned corners that break into a full-on grin when Brendon bounces over and slams his tray down onto the table with a cheery hello.

“Hello Brendon,” Ryan says, dryly. Brendon grins even more widely than Spencer, and takes Ryan’s apple while Ryan pretends not to notice.

When Jon sips his orange juice, Brendon scrunches up his face and reaches over to poke Jon in the cheek. “You have hair on your face again.”

Sometimes when Jon wakes up from treatment there is hair on his face. Sometimes after treatment it disappears. It happens to Spencer too, sometimes, so Jon doesn’t – Jon doesn’t. Jon doesn’t have a word for what he doesn’t do. But that only makes sense, right? Why would you have a word for something you don’t do?

| |

Jon is painting a picture of Dylan. _Trying_ to paint a picture of Dylan, since Brendon won’t stop making noise. Brendon’s pretty noisy, so Jon shouldn’t notice as much as he does. But this noise is different. New.

“What is that?”

The noise stops when Brendon looks up. “What’s what?”

“That noise. That noise you were just making.” Jon tries to make the noise, pitches his voice low and rasps, almost like coughing with his mouth closed. It’s not quite right. Not as nice as when Brendon does it. He pitches it higher this time, and Brendon’s face clears.

“Ah. Like.” He makes the noise again, smoother and better than when Jon tried.

“Yes. Yes, that’s it! What is it?”

“I don’t…” Brendon’s brow furrows again, and he sets down his paintbrush. “I don’t know.”

“Huh.” It doesn’t really bother Jon, the not-knowing things. He asks questions to know things, sometimes – like what do Pete’s machines do, and what’s the black stuff on Pete’s arms, and why are the windows so dark today, and –

“Humming,” Brendon says suddenly, and instead of smoothing his brow the furrows in his face only deepen. “It’s called humming.”

Jon nods. Adds a little triangle of pink to Dylan’s ears. “Want to go get a snack?”

| |

Jon is sitting on one of the benches on the upper level, snapping his flip-flops against the floor. He likes looking down on people, sometimes. He likes the view. He sits and watches until Spencer comes to find him.

“You look bored,” Spencer says bluntly. “Do you want to swim? Ryan and Brendon are at the pool.”

Jon thinks for a moment. “No. Not swim.”

Spencer is quiet while Jon thinks. Jon appreciates that. Not that he doesn’t appreciate Brendon, but sometimes Brendon’s constant talking is… tiresome. Tiring? “My fingers are itchy,” he says finally, and flexes them against his thigh.

“Itchy like you want to scratch them, or itchy like they need to be scratched?”

It’s a good distinction, but somehow neither is right. “Itchy like they need something to do.”

Now it’s Spencer’s turn to think. “We could go pet Dylan?”

Jon smiles and bumps his shoulder against Spencer’s. “Okay.” Jon likes Dylan. Dylan is their cat – Jon’s and Spencer’s and Ryan’s and Brendon’s and Travis’ and Franklin’s and Greta’s and Mikey’s. One day Dylan wasn’t there, and then one day he was. Pete brought Jon to a special room and put Dylan in his arms.

“Ray thought tactile-based, puerile relationships would be good for your development, or something.” Then he rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know, I let him do his touchy feely mumbo jumbo, right?”

Jon nodded. Pete seemed to like it when Jon nodded while Pete talked.

“Anyway. His name’s Dylan. He’s going to be a new friend.”

“Like Spencer?”

Pete smiled, sort of, tucking down his chin. “Not really. Dylan’s a little softer, for one thing.” He’d reached for Jon’s hand, placing it just behind Dylan’s ears. “Someone else will take care of him. You can just come in and pet him, whenever you’d like.”

“Pet him?”

Pete shrugged. “Because it feels nice. You don’t have to.”

Jon uncertainly ran his fingers over Dylan’s head. Dylan yawned, revealing tiny, pointy teeth. Pink tongue. “Huh.”

Jon likes Dylan. Jon likes Dylan more than anyone else here does, except maybe Brendon, who seems to like everything and everyone equally and with great enthusiasm. Still. Jon certainly appreciates that Spencer remembers this. Spencer is a good friend.

| |

Brendon is sitting near the pool. There is a brown-purple mark on his cheek. But it’s not like the color on Pete’s arms, and it makes Jon sad to look at.

“I got hurt,” Brendon says dully.

Ryan begins to run one hand up and down Brendon’s back haphazardly. “What did you do?” he sighs. Brendon tends to fall over things. Or under them. Or slip on them. He’s clumsy. It’s – _endearing_ , Jon thinks.

Brendon shrugs. “Pete says people just get hurt, sometimes.”

Jon nods. Sometimes he gets hurt too, but Pete always fixes it. “Pete always fixes it.”

“Pete said it’ll take time. Like when Franklin hurt his leg,” Brendon says, voice dropping to a hush. Jon remembers. Franklin jumped from one of the upper levels to a lower one. But he hadn’t jumped back up like usual. There’d been a strange noise, like a crack, and Franklin had made a noise, almost like when someone accidentally stepped on Dylan’s tail, and Bob had rushed out of the upstairs room and picked Frank up and taken him right to Pete. And Pete fixed him.

“He was gone, though,” Jon remembers. “For a while. Gone, like. Like he wasn’t here.”

Ryan squints at Brendon, somehow more serious than usual. “But he came back. And he was here.”

“Brent’s not here anymore,” Brendon says, quietly. Spencer and Ryan look at each other over the top of Brendon’s head.

“Who’s Brent?” Jon asks, even though he can’t remember opening his mouth.

“Brent was our friend before,” Spencer says matter-of-factly, and looks down at his hands.

“Now he’s gone—” Ryan pitches in, and Brendon, words nearly stumbling over one another in an effort to rejoin the conversation, finishes with “—but now _you’re_ here!”

Jon runs his hand through Brendon’s hair the way he pets Dylan, quick little scratches. Brendon makes a sound almost like a purr, and Jon feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Jon doesn’t like to think that friends could be gone, but he’s glad to be here with his friends now.

| |

Shower time is in the mornings, right before breakfast. Jon gets out of his pod, shrugs out of his clothes, steps into the water. Spencer doesn’t get into the shower until a few minutes later, rubbing at his eyes, and Jon grins. Spencer hates waking up.

“Morning,” he calls out, and grins again when Spencer growls at him. “Morning, Spence.”

Spencer gives him a reluctant smile in return, one side pulling higher than the other, while he steps into the water gingerly. Jon still thinks it’s a beautiful smile. On Spencer’s other side, Ryan is toweling off his hair – _trying_ to towel off his hair, while Brendon flicks more water at him. Greta is giggling, watching. Jon should be watching too – Ryan makes a funny, wrinkled-up face when he’s annoyed – but he’s watching Spencer instead.

Something in Jon’s chest tightens. He has to take an extra deep breath, like he forgot to breathe for a moment. Just from looking at Spencer. There’s a tingling feeling centered around his stomach too, and –

“Jon?” Spencer looks quizzically at him from the edge of the shower. Everyone is leaving. “It’s time for breakfast.”

“Just a minute,” Jon says. “I’ll be at breakfast in, in just a minute.” He closes his eyes and pushes his face into the water. He won’t look again until he’s sure Spencer’s gone.

When he looks up, Pete and Zack and Bill are all looking down at him.

| |

“Jon.”

Jon turns around. “Hi Zack.”

“It’s time for your treatment.”

Jon puts his breakfast tray in the bin with the rest and obediently follows Zack up the stairs.

| |

Jon wakes up in the chair in Pete’s office.

"Hello Jon. How are you feeling?"

“Did I fall asleep?”

“For a little while,” Pete says, tapping on the keys of the machine next to Jon’s head.

“Shall I go?”

Pete shrugs. “If you like.”

Jon gets out of the chair and walks out of Pete’s office. Zack is waiting on the other side of the door.

“Jon,” he says, and places one hand on Jon’s shoulder, a warm weight. “Is it okay if we talk for a minute before you go?”

“Okay,” Jon says, and follows Zack to a corner past Pete’s office.

Zack looks at the wall while he asks Jon questions. “Is Spencer your friend?”

“Yes,” Jon says promptly. Everyone here is his friend.

“Is he a… special friend?”

“Special?” Jon is uncertain. Aren’t all friends special? Doesn’t Zack know that?

“Better than the others,” Zack says. “ A different friend than the others here.”

Jon is confused. “But everyone here is my friend.”

Zack is looking at Jon now instead of the wall. He looks at Jon for a long time, and Jon scrunches his toes over the edge of his flip-flops.

“Sometimes we go see Dylan together,” he offers, and Zack finally shakes his head, smiling.

“Okay. Okay. Why don’t you go swim now? I think some of the others are already down there.”

“Okay,” Jon says, and goes to swim.

| |

Jon is eating breakfast with Spencer and Ryan and Brendon. He’s not very hungry, so he pretends not to notice when Brendon takes his apple. It makes Brendon happy. He starts to hum again, and after a moment Jon’s fingers scrape along his thighs, short little bursts.

 _Pluck_ , he thinks suddenly, strangely. _Pluck_ , and his fingers move along even as he wonders at it, as they pluck along in time to Spencer’s fingers tapping on the table, to Brendon’s mindless humming and Ryan’s quieter, creakier echo.


End file.
